The program is currently operating with private funds at 300 farmers markets across the nation, including seven in the California Bay Area, one in Austin, Tex., and eight in Connecticut.

A new “Veggie Rx” program that provides farmers market coupons to poor people who are obese or have diabetes is showing results in pilot programs at hospitals but is not up for federal funding.

Both programs are evidence that the foodie movement has so penetrated the mainstream that its ideas of have have made their way into the Republican-authored House farm bill.

They were created by Wholesome Wave, a Westport, Conn. foundation run by former Agriculture Department undersecretary Gus Schumacher that aims to connect poor consumers with local farmers. The food stamp match program began in 2007 and now operates in 30 states, involving 2,500 farmers.

The House bill would allot $5 million to the food stamp match, and the Senate bill would spend $25 million.

Leah Smith, director of programs for the Agricultural Institute of Marin, a non-profit organization that operates seven Bay Area farmers markets, said the food stamp match, called “Market Match,” has grown from a trickle of low-income customers when it bean in 2008 to become a major source of income for local farmers.

“We’ve seen a quadrupling of the number of customers and the number of fresh produce purchases at farmers markets since we started,” Smith said.

Smith said the program helped buffer local farmers markets from the recession. Poor families using the extra food stamp benefit report eating more fresh fruits and vegetables, she said.

Because the farm bill already marries nutrition programs for the poor with aid to farmers, Smith said it “makes a ton of sense” to encourage low-income families to use their benefits to buy fresh produce and help local farmers at the same time, rather than buying processed food.

She said the federal dollars, while minuscule relative to the $1 trillion, 10-year farm bill, will help keep the program going. “Foundations don’t give to programs forever and ever,” Smith said. “They want to see other stakeholders participate.”

The “Veggie Rx” program enrolls overweight and obese children and pregnant women though their doctors. “Prescriptions” are filled by fresh produce from farmers markets. They are refilled monthly, at office visits where nutrition goals are set.

“The farmer becomes a pharmacy, and fruits and vegetables are medicine to improve diabetes and reduce obesity,” Schumacher said. He said early results over 20 weeks showed that 38 percent of children reported weight loss.

“It’s a hell of lot cheaper than medicine and all the revenue went to farmers,” Schumacher said. “It’s kind of cool.”